A Matter of Time
by Adins
Summary: Jadeite is imprisoned in Eternal Sleep and floating aimlessly through nothingness when he is discovered by a most unlikely companion.
1. A Matter of Time

**A Matter of Time**

**By Adins**

"Time is an interesting thing when you look at it from the perspective of the unchanging," she says to me as waves of glassy brown hair crash over her shoulders from the ever blowing winds.

"On one hand you can look back and try to wrap your mind around things that have passed," she explains wordlessly; her lips never move, "How is it that you can be in the middle of saying or doing something and your actions can suddenly be lost to the flow of time? How can you gauge something you can't see? You can never recover what has been but there are consequences that show you did it. Do you understand?"

I'd nod if I could.

"At the same time, how can a man comprehend what hasn't yet occurred?" she asks me as though I'm sitting in the middle of a lecture hall, "Doesn't it make you feel insignificant when you start to piece the universe together in terms of time and distance? All that energy and matter expanding outward forever, no limits, no end?"

"It's probably cold and empty out there," I reply wondering if she can truly understand my deeper meaning, "You describe the ends of the universe as if it's a wondrous place full of incalculable mysteries."

"You're not much for exploration are you?" Setsuna wryly observes.

"I used to be," I reply, "But I seem to be stuck in one place these days."

"Keep the dry wit about you and there may just be hope for you yet, Jadeite," she says, unsuccessfully trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

I want to ask the inevitable question but I decide to return to the subject at hand: "What exactly do you do all day, or … eons, whatever?"

"I watch the curtains of time rise and fall on the largest stage in the universe," Sailor Pluto replies reservedly.

"That's not much of an answer," I tell her, "You don't exactly love your job do you?"

"Well if I loved it then it wouldn't be a job!" she cracks back.

"Those are my lines," I warn her, "You're supposed to be so elegantly refined and timeless that you're above those baser intellectual jabs."

"I'm only human."

"I beg to differ."

Setsuna sighs heavily and appears to take a seat in midair, crossing her torturously shapely legs in front of me just to make sure I'm still paying attention. Whoever designed these senshi uniforms knew how to throw their enemies off guard.

"What was the Dark Kingdom like for you?" she asks out of the blue and even if her gorgeous sparkling eyes weren't drilling holes into my brain I would have answered truthfully.

"Lonely," is my reply.

"You were the youngest, the most eager to please," she fills in words that I'd forgotten to speak, "And you were confused. It was like you were on the outside looking in."

"You're in the wrong profession," I joke, "The last soothsayer I visited brainwashed me and shackled me to the iron will of an imprisoned, shapeless evil spirit."

"I'm not laughing, Jadeite," Pluto barks, stiffening up on her Garnet Rod, "I have been alone in this place for as long as you have suffered under Queen Beryl. But unlike you I didn't have the luxury of companionship, even if it was forced."

"I didn't mean to insult you--"

"When I saw you floating out here in your delirium, no matter what atrocities you'd committed, I just couldn't leave someone like that," she admits, almost sounding like she's in a confessional, "I know what it's like to be alone."

"I can imagine," I say quietly, "Two thousand years is a long time to be without companionship; isolated with nothing but your thoughts."

"That's the problem," Setsuna agrees, "I can see everything, I can hear the thoughts and listen to the words of every creature in the galaxy but I can't _experience_ it. I long for experience, to feel that sense that something I had done is now in the past, or to look forward to something in the future."

"Are you trying to tell me you can't feel the passage of time?" I ask her.

"I don't feel time passing," she states with gritted teeth, forcing back tears, "I don't feel age, I don't feel _anything!_"

Long dormant emotions are stirring within me. Oh how I wish I could reach out to her. I would wrap my arms around her slender shoulders and hold her close to my rapidly beating heart just to let her know that she wasn't alone. I'd carry her away from this empty hell with its two way mirrors to all the ends of the universe. If only I wasn't so helpless. Why won't she just let me out of here?

"Setsuna," I ask plaintively, "I--"

Suddenly I decide to bite my tongue. I wanted to ask why she just doesn't extract me from this crystal prison. We could live together in whatever cross-dimensional reality she inhabits. We could run away into the ever shifting sands of time and no one would ever find us. We could settle down somewhere and debate philosophy and ethics until we're both too old to remember what those words even mean.

But all at once the realization sets in that she is a sailor senshi and nothing, not a supernova, not a new ice age, nothing is going to sway her from her eternal duty to guard these gates. Time will continue flowing as it always has and she'll always be there to watch over it. I'll be swept away in the current as well. In time she'll forget that I existed, but in a way that's what she wants. She'll be able to look back on the conversations we shared and on the names that I called her and maybe, just maybe she'll finally chuckle. God only knows how long it's been since she cracked a smile.

"I know what you're going to ask, Jadeite," she says with forced bemusement.

"I guess so, you can see the future."

"Finding you here was simply a matter of time," she informs me, obviously channeling some higher power or so I guess, "But that doesn't mean I'm allowed to change your destiny."

"Destiny usually follows a path," I observe optimistically, "Does that mean I'm actually moving towards something?"

"No, you're going to drift in emptiness forever for your sins," she says candidly.

"Oh."

Without warning the Senshi of Time bursts into riotous laughter the likes of which I'd never heard before. A moment ago I didn't think it was possible. If I wasn't so sure we were in a very indefinable dimension between space and time I'd have sworn the entire galaxy could have heard her.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes after a few moments as she wipes tears from her dazzling eyes, "I've been waiting a long time to pull that one out."

"I set myself up for that one, I guess."

Setsuna reaches down and her long fingers trace the sharp, geometric edges of the crystal surrounding my body. I know I'm in some kind of magical stasis and my brain is shut off from my physical senses but I feel the heat emanating from her fingertips all the same. God damn this crystalline prison! I have enough trouble trying not to go mad from boredom and now I have something like this to contend with?

"You're a very interesting man, Jadeite," she says haltingly, "You're the first person to make me laugh in several thousand years."

"I like to think that I leave an impression."

Her lips are suddenly pressed against the cold crystal in the general vicinity of where my face is frozen in a tortured scream. It feels like this awful cage is about to melt away but try as I might I still can't move a muscle or bat an eyelash. She pulls away with a forlorn look in her eyes and the Garnet Rod starts to glow. Suddenly I realize she's about to break all kinds of cosmic laws.

"I'm not going to remember you, am I?" I ask from the depths of the dead weight that is hanging on my heart.

"No," she says with a melancholy smile as the world around me fades to black, "But I'll remember you."

Somehow I think she had this all planned but I guess I'll never know for sure. I have a feeling I'm going to very shortly be waking up in a very sparse apartment with a giant headache and a really good case of amnesia. Not a huge deal I guess; like I said, I tend to leave an impression. She'll be back …

It's just a matter of time.

**The End**


	2. Author's Notes

**Author's Notes:**

This story was written as a challenge for a writing circle I belong to. The challenge was to write about a specific feeling, emotion, or atmosphere chosen from a list divided into seven different "colors." I chose the topics of time and loneliness and the thought occurred to me that Jadeite and Sailor Pluto would probably have a lot in common given that they're both in similar situations; Jadeite is imprisoned forever, literally, and Sailor Pluto is imprisoned by her duty to eternally guard the gates of time.

I will most likely be posting a few more short drabbles like this one over the course of the next few weeks focusing on different themes, genres, and points of view. Stick around for more shenanigans.

-Adins


End file.
